Re: How do I Recover the emails in an old Outlook .OST file?

HI Colin,

Welcome to SBS newsgroup.

Issue description:
=============

I understand that due to a new profile was created, so you could not
connect the outlook 2003 with the current OST file, you want to know if you
can covert it to a PST file for recover or reconnect to that old OST file.

Analyzing and suggestion:
=============

If the original Microsoft Exchange profile existed and was not modified,
you can still start the Microsoft Exchange client offline with the old OST
and recover the data by moving the messages from the OST to a PST file.
However, if the old profile was deleted or modified (by using it to log
onto a different mailbox) then the data in the OST is lost. The reason for
this is security related and is by design. Thank you for your understanding!

For more detailed information, please refer to the following Knowledge Base
article:

163589 XCLN: Restoring from an OST after Deleting the Mailbox
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=163589

The instruction to recover OST file when the original Outlook Profile
exists is applied for the Outlook with version earlier than 2003. For
Outlook 2003, if the original Outlook exists, we can try the following
steps.

1. In Control Panel, click Mail.
2. Click Show Profile, click the original Outlook Profile with the OST and
click Properties.
3. Click Email Accounts, click View or Change existing e-mail Accounts and
click next.
4. Click the Exchange Server and click Change.
5. Click More Settings button, in General tab, click Manually control
connection state and click Work offline and use dial-up networking.
6. In Advanced tab, ensure that Use Cached Exchange Mode is checked.
7. Click Ok, Next, and Finish to complete the setting.

Then start Outlook with original Outlook Profile, verify whether you can
access OST file. If so, you could create new PST file, then copy the
contacts in original Outlook Profile to new PST file.

If the old profile was deleted or modified (by using it to log onto a
different mailbox), I am afraid it is technically much difficult to restore
the data from the OST due to security cause. I cannot guarantee I will be
able to help you find a resolution to recover the OST content; all that I
can do personally is to try all possibilities I know to recover the OST
file. Next, I will provide the following suggestion which is not released
publicly; however per my personal test, it works great. Please take a try.

1. Log on Windows with a new account.

Note: Please copy your original user profile folder to another place as
backup.

2. Configure a new Outlook profile.

Note: Please use an Outlook profile name different from your original
Outlook profile name. If you use "Default Outlook Profile" previously, you
may need to use a new profile name here. For example, if previously, there
were three Outlook profiles named "Default Outlook Profile", "profile1",
and "profile2"; you need to use "profile3" as your new profile name and
remove the "Default Outlook Profile" entry also.

3. Import the original Outlook profile entries into your user registry and
export OST mailbox into a pst file.

NOTE: Here, let's assume the original user profile folder name as
"user_old" and assume the current user profile folder name as "user_now"

1. Open registry editor.
2. Locate "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE"
3. Click File->Load hive.
4. Choose NTUSER.DAT in C:\Documents and Settings\user_old
5. In key name, type "test" without the quotation marks and then click OK.
6. Locate the following registry key:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\test\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles"
7. Click File->Export to export the file into a REG file.
8. Edit the REG file, replace all "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\test" entries into
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER" and save the REG file.
9. Import the REG file into your registry.
10. Open Control Panel, double-click Mail, and then click Show profile.
11. Highlight the "user_old" profile and click Email accounts.
12. Select the View or change existing e-mail accounts and click Next.
13. Double click Exchange server, if you are prompted to input password,
cancel the Dialog box. Click More Settings.
14. In the General tab, select the "Manually control connection state"
radio button, and the "Choose the connection type when stating" checkbox.
15. Open Outlook and choose your original Outlook profile. For example, if
you use "Default Outlook Profile" previously, please choose "Default
Outlook Profile" here. Then you may be able to open your original OST file.
16. Export the contacts from entire mailbox into a pst file.

I hope this can help you recover the old OST content. However if you still
cannot recover the OST content, I afraid that you may need to try some
third-party solutions that may help you recover the specific OST file.
However, according to my deep research, most of them are not free. For your
convenience, I list a popular web site below. I hope they can help you.

http://www.officerecovery.com/exchange/index.htm
http://www.ontrack.com/special/0803drnews.asp
http://www.easyrecovery-guide.com/

Hope this helps. Please let me know the results so that I can provide
further assistance on this problem. I am looking forward to your reply.
Thanks and have a nice day!

========================
This response contains a reference to a Third party World Wide Web site.
You should know that Third party sites are not under the control of
Microsoft. Accordingly, Microsoft can make no representation concerning
the content of these sites. Microsoft is providing this information only
as a convenience to you. This is to inform you that Microsoft has not
tested any software or information found on these sites and therefore
cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or
suitability of any software or information found there. There are inherent
dangers in the use of any software found on the Internet, and Microsoft
cautions you to make sure that you completely understand the risk before
retrieving any software on the Internet.
========================



Best regards,

Charles Yang (MSFT)

Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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--------------------
| From: "Dirk-Thomas Brown" <youhadtoask@xxxxxxxxxxx>
| References: <#0Sx5Hd#FHA.2704@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
| Subject: Re: How do I Recover the emails in an old Outlook .OST file?
| Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 12:04:20 -0800
| Lines: 18
| X-Priority: 3
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| X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs
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| Saw this http://www.xcopy32.com/files.php?cat=5 fourth item down.
|
| Dirk-Thomas
|
| "Collin" <collinc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| news:%230Sx5Hd%23FHA.2704@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| >I took an XP Pro SP2 client off the network and reconnected it to create
a
| >new profile so it would correct a Net logon error.
| > Now Outlook does not have access to the old emails in the old .OST file.
| > Can I convert them from the old .OST file to a .PST file some how so I
can
| > recover them?
| >
| > Thanks,
| >
| > Collin
| >
|
|
|

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